Leila’s “Comme autrefois” from Georges Bizet’s Les pêcheurs de perles seems ill-suited to the voice and temperament of Maria Callas, but she chose it as part of her 1963 EMI recital of French arias along with selections from Manon, La Damnation de Faust, Iphigénie, Faust, and Werther.

John Ardoin remarks on Callas’s “cautious” approach to the aria and the feeling that she is “on the outside of the music looking in.” On the other hand, Janine Reiss, a coach and friend to Callas during her Paris years, was astonished at Callas’s request at an early session: “I would like you to explain to me how the [Pêcheurs] cadenza is constructed, rhythmically and harmonically, because one can sing it well only if one knows how it is written.”

Hear Maria Callas in other music by Bizet here and in the blog archives.

Callas is Carmen.

Happy Hallowe’en!

Like all strong and accomplished women, Maria Callas was branded a witch. Some of her most famous portrayals—Medea, Lady Macbeth—reinforced this image.

Nadia Stancioff wrote of Callas’s fame as a “strega”:

Italians have a strange fear of speaking negatively of the dead. Before embarking on a conversation regarding Callas, a number of people crossed themselves; others muttered “May she rest in peace” or made the “horns” gesture to ward off evil, as an extra precaution. Maybe they were afraid that Callas the strega—the witch, as she called herself—Callas the demigoddess might strike back!

In Bizet’s opera, Carmen is labelled a “sorcière” and a “diable” by her weak and bitter lover, Don José. Hear Callas in the card scene from her 1964 EMI recording of Carmen. (Sorry to make you click through; embedding is disabled for that clip.) From the archives: other selections from Carmen sung by Callas.